The Mystery of Mystery Inc
by TheSovereigntyofReality
Summary: Mystery Inc. vanished without a trace. Now, the son of Fred and Daphne must team up with his friends to find out what happened from the clues that are left behind. Yes, aware this is like the latest cartoon or whatever . Fred/Daphne OC/OC. I claim no ownership to canon characters.
1. Roman Jones

A front door opened and closed. The boy that came in, brushed a hand through his blonde hair and looked around. His hazel eyes caught sight of a note sitting on the table and he went and picked it up.

Went shopping. Got something for you upstairs. Check it out.

Roman Jones recognised his Aunt Ginger's handwriting. He'd lived with his Aunt Ginger and his Uncle Matt since he was a little boy. They never made any secret of the fact that his parents had vanished without a trace. They only thing they'd never told him was who his parents were. Now Roman was 16-years-old.

He headed up the stairs and dumped his bag just inside his door. There was a box sitting on his bed and he sat next to it. Curiously—_it's not my birthday_—Roman pulled the lid off and picked up the letter that was on top. Again, it was in his Aunt Ginger's handwriting.

**Dear Roman,**

**Well, I guess this is it, kid. No more secrets. I'd be surprised if you're still here when we get back. Heck! I'd be surprised if you didn't drag Hame, Steph and Jane along with you. I remember when you were little and you asked me for stories about your parents and I gave you fantastic stories about monsters and a talking dog. Well, kid, those weren't just stories. Your parents were Fred Jones and Daphne Blake of Mystery Incorporated. And I'm not kidding.**

**I might tell you the full story one day but basically, they went looking into a mystery and they vanished. All we could uncover was someone had it in for them. They'd been following the gang for years.**

**Your parents had foresight though. When they discovered him, they realised they might not come out. And, if they didn't, he'd go after you. They made unofficial arrangements that I would take care of you if none of them made it. They just never told us why it was at the time.**

**I know you, Roman Jones. You're just like both your parents. You'll want to uncover this. So, in this box are all the clues and all the suspects we could think of. Along with some photos of the people that should have been your family.**

**Good luck.**

**Aunt Ginger.**

Roman looked around and then spotted something. A set of keys. He heard the doorbell ring and jumped up. He bolted downstairs to the front door and opened it. There was a deliveryman there. He held up an ipad.

'I've got a delivery for Roman Jones,' he said.

'Yeah, that's me,' Roman took the ipad and signed. 'What is it?'

'It's a very colourful van that's been kept in mothballs for the past 15 years,' the deliveryman answered. 'Looks like a replica of the Mystery Machine that Mystery Inc used to have. But I doubt you remember that far back.'

He headed off. They left the van—the Mystery Machine—in the driveway. Roman made a decision. He was going to find out what had happened to his parents. But he couldn't do it alone. He ran up the stairs and slammed on his adopted cousin's door. Hamish James pulled the door open.

'What?' he asked.

'I'm gonna need some help,' Roman said. 'We'll need Steph and Jane.'

The Mystery Machine moved through the forest that divided West Town from Coolsville. Roman Jones, Hamish James, Stephanie Anderson and Jane Quentin were all aboard. They all wanted to know what happened to Mystery Inc.

'I can't believe your parents are Fred Jones and Daphne Blake,' Jane murmured, pressing her glasses up on her nose.

'I can't believe you got the van,' Steph said. 'What's our first stop?'

'Mystery Inc. Headquarters,' Roman answered, from when he was driving. 'There ought to be some clues as to what the case was all about there. Aunt Ginge gave me two sets of keys. One for the Mystery Machine and one for Headquarters. Jane? Hame? Can you guys check downstairs while Steph and I check upstairs? I think there are only like two floors or something like that.

'No problem,' Jane said, moving forward. 'But look at this. It's a media shot of Mystery Inc. when they reunited in '02. It was the Case of Spooky Island. Apparently the culprit was Scooby-Doo's nephew, Scrappy-Doo. He, it appears, flipped his lid. The story goes that he flipped his lid and gave Mystery Inc the alternative to either appoint him their unquestioned leader or he was leaving. So, naturally, they kicked him out.'

'I saw that one,' Roman said as Steph and Hamish looked. 'What is that thing that my father's holding?'

'I read about the case,' Jane said. 'It's called the Damon Ritus. It's an ancient relic of the occult. It was allegedly used for a leader to absorb souls in something called the Darkpocalypse Ritual. Apparently, Mystery Incorporated stopped them.'

'What about that one?' asked Steph, pointing to another one. 'What's in that curtain?'

'The way I understand it,' Jane answered, 'the costume of the pterodactyl ghost was animated with randamonium in '04. That's what's in the curtain.'

'Huh?' asked Hamish densely.

'A chemical was used and the costume was brought to life,' Steph translated as she climbed in the front with Roman. 'And I heard that the Pterodactyl Ghost wasn't the only one that got this treatment, either.'

'No,' Jane thought about it. 'There was also the Black Knight Ghost, a zombie, the Skeleton Men, the 10,000 Volt Ghost and the Tar Monster, I believe.'

Jane and Hamish came and looked over Roman's and Steph's shoulders. Jane pointed.

'There it is,' she said. 'Coolsville. I think Mystery Incorporated Headquarters should be easy to find from there.'

'I've got a feeling I know where it is,' Roman murmured.


	2. The Plot Thickens

No one had set foot in Mystery Inc HQ in nearly 15 years. So the key took some wrestling and the door creaked when two 16-year-olds, a 15-year-old and a 14-year-old walked in. The two 16-year-olds headed upstairs and the two younger ones looked around. Roman and Steph split up once they were upstairs and looked around. The only light they were using were their flashlights.

Roman stepped out of a room and stopped. He leaned back against the wall. He'd lived here once. He'd been a baby here. He'd taken his first steps here. Almost like a dream or a vision or something, he saw his younger self toddling unsteadily down this very hallway, whimpering for his father and he saw his father come out and pick him up. Then he saw his mother come out and join them.

'Roman!' Steph's call pulled him back to the present and he headed towards her.

She was in a bedroom, standing at a desk. Roman shined his torch over the room. It was colour coordinated blue and purple. Roman knew this had been his parents' bedroom. The place he came to in the night when he had nightmares. He crossed over to Steph who was at the desk. He shined his torch to add to hers. The photo was obvious and they briefly flicked it over: **Fred and Daphne marriage reception—Coolsville Grand Hall.** Then they flicked it back to the photo. Roman was struck by how happy his parents looked. There was obviously a crowd there, of course. Roman looked at Steph.

'I don't really remember them,' he murmured. 'I mean, they taught me how to walk and talk and no one knows who I am so they obviously protected me but…I wanna remember little things about them.'

'You were a year old when they disappeared,' Steph soothed him. 'You aren't expected to remember how they smiled or how they laughed. But you're right, they did protect you. I never even knew anyone in Mystery Inc had kids before I saw that letter. Roman, detectives always tick people off. Especially the people they expose. And those people often seek revenge. Your parents—the whole of Mystery Inc—obviously considered that. They kept you hidden to keep you safe. They loved you. And it looks like they were prepared for anything.'

She picked up an envelope addressed to him and handed it to him. Roman set the photo aside and opened it.

**Dear Roman,**

**If you're reading this it means your mom and I are no longer there. And I'm sorry for that. We both wanted to watch you grow up, but if we didn't do it you may never have gotten the chance. You've obviously started asking questions. We're supernatural detectives but most of the time, they turn out to be normal people in costumes. This one knows we have a son. Apparently he doesn't know your name. He keeps referring to you as "the boy".**

**He's been following us for years because he was one of the creeps we unmasked. It happens from time to time. We have three suspects for who it is. All three are some of our early cases:**

**Captain Cutler—he faked his own death and stole yachts from a marina to paint over and sell. He then went around as the ghost of himself and was covered in a glowing seaweed, making the mystery that much more eerie.**

**John Simms—a journalist that disguised himself as a Witch Doctor and haunted a deserted Indian settlement to get all the gold he'd found below the ruins.**

**Rodgers—a racecar driver that posed as the Phantom Racer so he could steal racecars and sell them overseas. He hypnotized the drivers so they didn't remember a thing of what happened to them and put a jet engine in his own "Phantom Car".**

**If you're reading this, Roman, it's up to you to solve the mystery. It's splashed all over the newspapers now, so you should be able to find the details easily. Remember: your mom and I love you. That's why we're doing this.**

**Love, dad.**

Steph took the letter out of his hand and read it. She then smiled at Roman.

'I told you they loved you,' she said, brushing her blonde hair back. 'Come on. Let's go and see what Jane and Hamish found.'

Hamish and Jane had found a map, pinpointing the location of the old High School Club House. As Roman drove there, Jane surfed the internet, scanning all three suspects and explaining what she found.

'Captain Cutler's out,' she said. 'He tried it again, with less of a costume but the cops caught on quick, despite it being on the other side of America. They just did their homework. He went back into prison and he was killed there last year. They cremated and buried his body.'

'What about Simms?' Steph asked.

'He moved to Australia after he was released 18 years ago,' Jane said. 'According to the records, he's still there.'

'Which leaves us with Rodgers,' Hamish said. 'Where is he?'

'Oh, he's in Coolsville,' Jane said. 'And he was released 15 years ago—just weeks before Mystery Inc vanished.'

'Isn't that coincidence?' Roman remarked. 'What say when we're done here, we have a little talk to Mr. Rodgers?'

'Not you,' Jane said. 'You look too much like your dad. If he is guilty, he knows Fred and Daphne had a son and he'll know it's you when he sees you. How about Steph and I go and talk to him. You and Hamish do a little research on Mr. Simms.'

Roman nodded slightly and pulled up in front of the clubhouse. It had a worn, rotted sign out the front with "MYSTERY INC." hand-painted in red.

The four of the climbed out of the Mystery Machine and walked in. The place was decorated accordingly. Jane moved forward to the device in the centre of the floor. Roman went around to something he'd spotted. He gave a lawnmower winder a few swift tugs and all the lights came on.

'This must be Velma's,' Jane murmured. 'It's a hand-made resonance imaging device.'

'Roman, look at this,' Hamish called from where he was standing at the blue corner. He was looking at the trophies. 'Now we know where you get your athletic streak.'

'Hmm,' Roman murmured. Then something else caught his eye.

He picked up the framed photo of Mystery Inc in their younger days. Probably around the time they'd started. Shaggy, Scooby (Roman really wished he remembered him at the very least), Velma and his parents. His father's arm was dropped casually around his mother's shoulders. It was clear they were together even then.

'Your mom was pretty,' Steph murmured. 'Your dad wasn't bad either.'

'Yeah,' Jane rolled her eyes. 'Come on, Steph. Let's go talk to Mr. Rodgers.'

Roman dropped the keys in Steph's hand and the two girls left the room.


	3. The Mystery Inc way

Steph and Jane stood across a desk from Rodgers. He was aged and seemed grumpy about being asked about Mystery Inc., especially considering he probably thought they were long gone. Jane shrugged.

'Well, they're not gone until someone says "case closed",' she pointed out. 'So where were you when Mystery Inc. vanished?'

'I was here in Coolsville, looking for work,' Rodgers answered. 'It wasn't easy to get employed when those meddling kids had pulled a mask off of your face.'

He scowled at them.

'You girls remind me a lot of them,' he growled, 'and I don't like it. I ain't doing anything wrong this time and I'm not responsible for the premature retirement of Mystery Incorporated.'

Steph and Jane looked at each other. Then they turned and walked out.

'Do you believe him?' Steph asked as she and Jane climbed into the Mystery Machine and Steph started driving back to the Clubhouse.

'Actually, I do,' Jane said. 'It maybe my inexperience. He didn't like Mystery Inc., that much is for certain. But two weeks is hardly enough time to stage the disappearance such as that of detectives such as them. It would have had to be well thought-out and well set-out. That could take years.'

'You mean like John Simms had?' Steph asked.

'He's the next person to look at,' Jane responded.

Roman and Hamish looked up from the computer as the girls came in. Roman gestured for them to come over. The two girls crossed over to him.

'Brilliant,' Jane murmured. 'How did you find this?'

'Just kept digging,' Hamish answered.

'This guy's goose is cooked,' announced Steph. 'The Case of the Coolsville Ground Hog Beast.'

A grotesque hog creature that walked on two legs stalked along. It stopped and snorted. The green-eyed blonde boy ahead had recognisable features. The hog roared and started chasing after him. Roman Jones ran around a corner and up a small platform, making a long jump before landing in a crouch. The hog saw no reason for the jump and ran in a straight line for the 16-year-old boy, still crouched on the ground…

…and fell into a hole. The boy stood up and went to the edge. He was joined by a blue-eyed blonde girl, a hazel-eyed redheaded 14-year-old boy and an Asian 15-year-old girl who was the definition of "nerd".

'Bet you wished you put fingers on that outfit, didn't you?' the blonde boy challenged.

The mystery of Mystery Inc. couldn't be completely solved. But the culprit could be named and punished. And four teenagers were answering the questions, with the handcuffed Beast in the middle of their line-up.

'Can you tell us who he is?' one reporter asked.

'Well, if we're right, the Beast should be…' Jane began.

Roman and Hamish lifted the mask off to reveal the journalist.

'…John Simms,' Steph finished. 'The first Witch Doctor that Mystery Inc. ever uncovered.'

'He was pretending to be in Australia to make himself be passed over as a suspect,' Jane went on. 'But Mystery Inc. didn't buy it. And neither did we.'

'But how do you know this?' another reporter asked.

'Because,' Roman answered, 'we were allowed access to Mystery Inc.'s notes on the case. When they came here, to confront him, they suspected they wouldn't be walking out of it alive. They left several precautions in place where they were sure I'd find them.'

'Why you?' yet another reporter asked.

'Because,' Roman said, 'I'm the son of Fred and Daphne Jones.'

There was a collective gasp. And then, a dead silence. Then one of the reporters managed to recover.

'Why haven't we ever heard of you?' he asked.

'Because of people like Simms,' Roman answered. 'Mom and dad knew if the world knew that they had a child, then that child would be constantly targeted by people they'd unmasked who sought revenge once they got out of prison. That's also why I was born in MIHQ and raised by a family friend living in a nowhere town rather than a blood relative.'

'So what did Simms do with your parents and the rest of Mystery Inc.?' the first reporter asked.

Roman, Steph, Hamish and Jane looked at Simms.

'Even he doesn't know,' Roman said.

'He wanted to hit them with a laser ray he created which would burn off large bits of flesh,' Hamish added. 'That way they'd die slowly and painfully with no way to be saved. He'd have his revenge.'

The police moved over and began carting Simms away. They loaded him into the police wagon.

'But we found this,' Jane held up an old DVD. 'It's a recording of what happened. Once he got his revenge, he was going to stop anyone else from interfering by broadcasting this to show America what he'd do to people who didn't comply with him.'

'Except it didn't go according to plan,' Step said. 'The machine that did it was quite a sight. It's still in there. And it sent Scooby-Doo into a panic, wheeling around the room.'

'He banged into the machine a few times and scrambled the programming,' Roman continued. 'There was a bright flash and they were completely gone. The outer circle of Mystery Inc., who looked for them afterwards, couldn't find a thing. Not even a drop of blood. So, we're gonna study the machine until we find out what happened.'

A cheer rose up among the crowd.

'Can we have your names?' one Journalist called over the noise.

They waited until everyone quieted down before they answered,

'Roman Jones.'

'Stephanie Anderson.'

'Hamish James.'

'Jane Quentin.'


	4. Ending

_So…what happened to Mystery Inc.?_

Carly Alice, the Sovereign of the 21st Century, set down the newspaper.

'Scooby's panic attack turned the flesh burner into a time warp.' She explained, 'It took Mystery Inc. 2—as Roman, Steph, Hamish and Jane called themselves—the better part of 50 years to work it out. They never told anyone, mind you. They knew it would cause too much trouble. They just set things out for the original Mystery Inc. for when they reappeared. Roman left a letter for them. It went a little something like this:

**Dear mom, dad, Aunt Velma, Uncle Shaggy and Scooby-Doo,**

**It took us 50 years to work it out (me and my friends Hamish (Ginger and Matt's son), Steph and Jane) but we found out you got thrown 200 years into the future. It's better than the alternative. Simms designed the machine to kill you slowly and painfully. I'll spare you the details. You've probably got it figured out anyway.**

**We made sure everything was set up for you but you'll probably have to reestablish your reputation. I don't want you to worry about me. Aunt Ginge and Uncle Matt took good care of me, just like you thought they would. They told me the truth when I was sixteen and they expected me to involve myself and Hame, which I did.**

**My only regret, I guess, is that I don't really remember any of you too clearly but I do love you all. And thank you for all you did for me. I've had a good life so far and I'm willing to bet that will follow me until the day that I die.**

**Love, Roman**

…and he tacked it onto the wall just inside the door of MIHQ, where they'd be sure to find it. In the 23rd century, I'm told, Roman has two little sisters and a little brother. Mystery Inc. made the adjustment fast and were just as famous in the 23rd century as they had been in the 21st. But they never forgot the people they unintentionally left behind. They made sure they knew who all the descendants were, even their own. Even if they never actually made contact with them.'


End file.
